


Maze of Moments

by justbygrace



Series: Inspired by Songs [4]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fluffy Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-08-05
Packaged: 2018-02-09 21:38:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1998774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbygrace/pseuds/justbygrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They wanted a story inspired by 'Angel in Blue Jeans' by Train and this is the result.<br/>The same story: two different perspectives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part the First

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John's POV

John Noble hated his job. Really, genuinely, truly despised his job from the bottom of his soul. His job consisted of sitting in a tiny booth and collecting tolls from people as they drove by. If it didn't pay top dollar he would have quit ages ago...probably the first day they dropped him off and he had to fold his lanky frame into the miniscule space and then breathe in exhaust fumes while dealing with cranky commuters who didn't think he was worth the time of day. 

What made it worse was the fact that he worked the night shift, the seven pm to five am shift that literally no one else wanted (neither did he, but he didn't have a family who cared), and traffic along that stretch of road was often few and far between during those hours. Somewhere around three am John would begin thinking about the best way to dismantle the tollbooth and how to cause the most amount of havoc for the department of transportation. He never followed through on the thoughts, but they helped him keep a grip on his tenuous middle-of-the-night sanity. 

On one particular night John was right in the midst of the latest daydream, smiling a bit as he nodded along to The Proclaimers and picturing the entire row of tollbooths on fire, when a new car rolled up. He dropped his feet from their perch on the sill and stuck his hand out for the ticket and the money. To his surprise there was nothing forthcoming and so he peered out the window, curious to see what was going on. The occupant of the vehicle was a woman, young and beautiful with blonde hair and a ready smile, who bit her lip as she fumbled for coins in the center console. 

John tried on a smile for size and was thrilled when she returned it, apologizing for the delay she was causing him. He was not at all sorry, content to lean on his elbows and watch her, and told her so...including the bit about watching her which he immediately regretted, though it did cause an appealing blush to spread down her neck. By the time she had collected enough to pay the toll, he learned that she was on her way into the city to visit her mum, had a cat named Chip, chattered a bit when she was nervous, and smiled with her tongue between her teeth. 

Their exchange lasted less than eight minutes, but John thought about her off and on for the rest of his shift and when he got home he fell asleep wondering what her name was. That evening as he prepared himself to spend ten hours crammed inside a tiny box, he tried not to think about whether he would see her again. Instead he cranked up the volume to the radio and whistled 'Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick' loudly enough to make him the recipient of several dirty looks from the passing motorists. 

By three-thirty the copious amounts of caffeine in his system was proving an unworthy opponent to the hours of empty road and the wooden wall of the tollbooth was looking like a mighty tempting pillow. He was just considering whether or not an approaching flare of headlights would be enough to wake him when she pulled up, a shy smile already on her lips. He leaned against the sill in what he hoped was a casual pose and attempted to be charming. Later he considered that perhaps information about the gravitational pull of the earth was not his best opening line, but she smiled and laughed and didn't rush away. 

He spent the rest of his shift thinking about the new things he had learned about her: she smelled of vanilla and strawberries, was a Taurus, chewed her thumbnail while she was thinking, and her eyes were the most beautiful whiskey color he had ever laid eyes on and not the cheap stuff, the good Irish stuff that sold for more than he made in a day. He didn't even care when some old man flipped him off because it took him more than point two seconds to count out his change or when Jethro - the mouthy teenager who worked the day shift - was a full forty-five minutes late or when his sister called and wanted to tell him every excruciating detail about her new hat. 

It was another week before he saw her again. He knew that eventually he was going to have to make some serious apologies to everyone he knew, but at the moment all he cared about was seeing his highway angel again. He was slouched in his chair, glaring out at the slashing rain and wondering how on earth every passing car managed to spray dirty water on him, when a familiar accent broke through his irritation. He couldn't pretend to be anything but delighted and relieved to see her and, if the light in her eyes was anything to go by, she felt the same way. She offered no explanations for her absence and he asked no questions, unsure where the boundaries of a friendship? relationship? acquaintanceship? thing lay when it had lasted a grand total of seventeen minutes. Well, twenty-five by the time she drove away.

After that he never knew when she was going to drive by. Sometimes it was every night for a week, other times she would go days without putting in an appearance. His mood was a direct result of her presence in his life and he offered no apologies for that fact, though he only tried to defend it to his sister (Donna's opinion on the matter varied depending on the day). Most of his waking hours he spent attempting not to rationalize falling for a woman he saw for five minutes at a time on an unpredictable basis and most of his sleeping hours were spent dreaming of what she would taste and feel and smell and sound like as she came apart in his arms. 

John knew a lot about his highway angel - her favorite color (pink), how old she was (twenty), where she had grown up (South London), how many animals she had rescued from the side of the road (eight), how often she got the oil changed in her car (not often enough), whether she had a tattoo (yes, on her left shoulder blade), where she wanted to go on vacation (Spain) - everything except the ever-so-unimportant details of her name and where she lived and worked. He had never won any awards for politeness, but he understood that the omission of these details was intentional on her part and he never pushed her to tell him. She knew his name - the joys of wearing a nametag - but never used it; a month and a half into her visits she started calling him Doctor with no explanation and he didn't question that either.

Her visits continued to be regularly erratic for ten months and then they stopped. John waited a week, then a month, but when it began to drag into the second month he knew she wasn't coming back. His bad mood turned worse, frustration at his stupidity making him impossible to be around. He knew he had no one to blame but himself for falling in...well, for really, really, really liking this beautiful, funny, smart, interesting woman, but it didn't make it any easier to accept. 

At the beginning of the second month - almost exactly one year since she had first driven up to his tollbooth - John walked out in the middle of his shift, got in his car, and drove to the airport. He had nothing but the clothes on his back and he didn't care, buying a ticket for the first plane with an available seat and calling Donna from the gate. Donna was less than thrilled that her little brother was flying to France, but understood why he had to go.

And go he did. Paris. Rome. Sydney. Berlin. Cairo. New York City. Cape Town. Tokyo. John wasn't sure if he was running toward something or away and he didn't stop to think about it. He threw away the guidebooks, tried all the food, embarrassed himself with his lack of language knowledge, blew through his savings, and occasionally kissed blonde strangers when he'd had too much of the local drink. He never went farther than that - intellectually he knew he was a free agent but his heart had a different take on the matter - and he always politely but firmly informed the woman that he wasn't interested before running on to the next adventure.

It took John eleven months to make it to Barcelona. His feet dragged as he disembarked the plane, this place had been his Waterloo and it was time to conquer it. He forced himself not to think as he wandered the streets, his eyes skimming over the bright flowers, the colorful signs, the tempting cafes. It wasn't until he reached the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc that he knew what he was looking for and he grabbed a bit of wine and bread and settled in. 

The sun was setting in the west when he was startled from a slight doze by a tap on his shoulder. He didn't turn around, instead glancing down at the fingers that just barely rested on his shoulder, heart stuttering at the appearance of the chewed nails and beaded rings. With one hand he slowly, oh so very slowly, reached up and allowed their fingers to intertwine, sure he didn't mistake the jump of electricity as they connected. From there it was easy to pull her into his arms, to feel the press of her lips against his, to dance in the spray of the magic fountain. He no longer had a job, but he had his Rose and they had a life to live. Together. As it should be.


	2. Part the Second

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose's POV by popular request.

Rose Tyler loved her job. It was the one thing she'd wanted to do since she could first lisp an answer to "and what do you want to do when you grow up?" and nothing, not the death of her father, not her mother's low monetary status, not subsidizing university with department store wages, nothing caused any real barriers between herself and working for Torchwood - the elite government task force. Her father had been an agent - killed in an undercover mission when she was seven - but it was her high grade point average, impressive Academy training scores, and can-do-it attitude that landed her a spot on the exclusive team.

Life was good. She was on the fast-track to promotion (there were rumors that she was being groomed to take over for Yvonne Hartman when the Torchwood Head retired), was able to provide for her mum, and genuinely enjoyed what she did. Occasionally at night, in the loneliness of her flat, she wished for companionship, for someone with whom to share life's journeys, but most nights were spent on stake-outs or in cramped motel rooms and she didn't have time to dwell on it.

One night, in late Spring, Rose was driving into the city for her weekly visit to her mum. It was a nice night, unseasonably warm, and it took her mind off the fact that she had told Jackie she'd be in at seven for a late dinner and here it was past midnight and she was just now headed up the pike. She was within site of the tollbooth before she remembered that she'd left her wallet in her other jacket. Biting her lip she hit the brake and reached over to dig for the correct change from the center console. By the time she recollected that she was making the attendant wait for her excavation of various coffee cups, fast food wrappers, and several years of straws, napkins, and ketchup packets, it was far past the moment of politeness and she could only look up with a guilty smile. 

The sight of really great hair, warm brown eyes, and a tentative smile brought her up short. She had always thought men liked that lived only on the covers of gossip magazines and strutting down runways, not shoved into a tollbooth at god-knows-what-time in the morning. And when he opened his mouth to tell her that he was having a great time watching her, she knew she was in for it. She blushed and then was embarrassed for blushing and opened her mouth and rambled, really just chattered in a way she hadn't since she was a newbie in basic.

By the time she finally handed over the correct amount of money and had eased back into traffic, she knew she was in trouble. He had listened to her, really listened, laughing in all the right places and making jokes about werewolves which would probably not have been funny if someone else was telling them. She fell asleep in her childhood bed with the echo of his rich laugh in her mind and woke up wondering what his name was. Grabbing her phone she dialed into her supervisor, a quick "will be in late tonight, Donna" and flopped back on her pillow trying not to think about how stupid she was being.

Rose kept her mind blank as she navigated the back streets out of the city and then reentered the highway going back towards the city. She had left her best coat on Jackie's front table (she really had, a slip that she pretended wasn't intentional) and there was no way she could resume her duties without it. Even as her headlights lit up the glass panels of the tollbooth she wondered if he worked tonight, if this was still the right booth, if she needed to get her head examined. 

His greeting about how the earth revolved around the sun and he could learn to revolve around her was corny and awful and the cutest thing she'd ever heard. She was not charming or witty and, quite frankly, neither was he, but he was genuine and rested his chin on his hand and directed his full attention on her. It was hard to resist something like that and even harder to pull away and it was only the noise of an approaching car that forced her to do so.

Rose had no reason to go into the city for the next week though not for the lack of trying. By Thursday she had a feeling Donna was ready to send her to pick up her dry cleaning just to get her to shut up about wanting to go. Mostly she wanted to see him again just to discover if she remembered him correctly; her imagination was painting him as a sort of sex god and his hair was taking on a life of its own. He'd even made an appearance in her dreams once or twice and that in and of itself was unusual. 

It was Friday night when she finally got the chance. Gwen had called for back-up at a sting just east of the city and if she left thirty minutes early, she'd have plenty of time to take the highway and still get to Gwen in plenty of time. He was not quite a sex god, but he was every bit as gorgeous as she remembered and his hair deserved to have sonnets written about it and, more importantly he didn't ask where she'd been or when she was coming back or what her name was or why she was wearing a bulletproof vest (if he noticed...his gaze was trapped between her mouth and her eyes like he was getting paid for it). When she finally made it to Gwen she was considering either driving on continual loops around his tollbooth or avoiding the whole area like the plague.

Her common sense won out and she did neither. Instead she made more trips up to see Jackie than she had since she'd joined Torchwood ("No, mum nothing's wrong, I just missed you!"). She was unable to plan the visits with any regularity but she bowed out of so many beer and poker nights the rest of the team was starting to joke they were going to ship her off to the medic. She almost checked in with Martha herself, she knew the visits to the lone tollbooth were positively the stupidest thing she'd done since the time she'd faced off against the head of the Jagrafess solo. 

It was also, sadly, the closest she'd had to a relationship since...well, ever. Leaning out of her car window exchanging stories of her childhood or teasing him about the fact he named the tollbooth or encouraging him in his dream to go traveling or confiding that she didn't actually know how to change her own oil, it almost felt like a date. Except for the bit where they didn't exchange names (she'd figured out his ages ago - John Noble his uniform read, but the first time he whipped on his spectacles the resemblance to the Doctor on her favorite program was a given, though she didn't feel led to explain the reference) and she didn't mention that at least half the time she was driving by was because she was headed to a risky mission and the day she drove up to find him engrossed in the headlines of their latest take down, well, she tasted copper in her mouth for several kilometers down the road.

She often wished she could give him a schedule, a promise to meet at such-and-such a time and they would have chips and take a walk under the starlight and hold hands and maybe he would kiss her goodnight - it was a foolish pipe dream and she knew it. Instead she clung to what they had, an inconsistent schedule of drive-bys, a flow of information that skipped all the major points, and handing off an extra wrapper of chips because...well, just because. 

Things continued on in this vein for ten months and she was on the verge of giving a mighty screw you to protocol and inviting him to a real date and telling him everything. And then Donna called her into the office. She heard the words through a fog: undercover, estimated time unknown, overseas, leaving tonight. There was no use protesting, she didn't even need to pack, just board a plane and take off. Scrunched down between two elderly gentleman, she couldn't help letting out a tear or two. For what was, for what could have been, for the Doctor sitting in his tollbooth night after night waiting for her to show up and then she straightened up. She had a mission.

Once upon a time it would have been a dream come true. Rose had been assigned to take down the biggest name in drug trafficking and the intrigue and danger of moving through the ranks should have made her blood sing. Instead it just wore on her. The endless river of alcohol, the lies, the flash of cities: Paris, Rome, Sydney, Berlin, Cairo, New York City, Cape Town, Tokyo. Sometimes she almost thought she saw the Doctor out of the corner of her eye, but she couldn't look, couldn't break character for so much as a split second.

The offers to sleep her way to the top came frequently, but she wasn't interested, laughing and flirting and teasing, but ultimately finding her bed alone. All communication with the outside world (including Jackie and didn't that hurt) was completely cut off, but it was the late night chats with the Doctor that she missed the most. And laying in her bed, listening for the sound of those who would take advantage of her, she made up her mind. 

It took her a year to take down Davros, but she did it - handing him off to the authorities on a silver platter, him and every single one of his cohorts. The look on that man's face almost made the excruciating months worth it. Almost. The paperwork, the debrief, the congratulations and awards and medals, they took more time than she was willing to give. At last she was able to break free, to hop in her old car and cruise up the highway. Her heart was racing as she slowed down at the Doctor's tollbooth, but the gum-popping teen who stuck his head out was most definitely not her Doctor. He'd quit, she was informed, walked out in the middle of his shift, nearly caused an accident because of it. She drove off before the kid had stopped talking.

She let out a years worth of tears on Jackie's shoulder that night, the whole story coming out: how she had met the Doctor, started talking to him, fallen for him, the stupid undercover. Jackie was patient, understanding, sympathetic, up until the moment when she shook her head at her daughter. "You know where to find him, love." Did she? Rose was all set to say that no, she did not either! And then months of tollbooth dates finally clicked and she started crying and laughing all at once.

Rose called Donna from the plane. Extended leave, maybe even permanent, she deserved it after all. Donna was riding high from the success of Davros' capture and didn't offer a word of argument. Settling back in her seat, Rose enjoyed the passing scenery; she knew where she was going and what she would find.

It was dusk when she walked up to the base of the Magic Fountain of Montjuïc in Barcelona - the Doctor's favorite spot on earth. She was worried at first, what if she'd missed him, what if she had waited too long, and then there he was. His feet were propped on a table, his eyes shut, she hesitated, determined to capture every bit of the moment in her memory forever. 

At last she approached, tapping him on the shoulder and watching as his hand came up to cover hers, his head tilted as he studied her hand, slowly sliding his fingers between hers. The feel of that skin-to-skin contact almost had her knocking him over right then and there, but she resisted, waiting, waiting for him to stand, to turn, to pull her into his arms and cover her lips with his own. And, as they swayed in the mist of the magic fountain, she found she didn't care about Torchwood or adrenaline-charged take downs or taking over for Yvonne Hartman. She had everything she wanted right in her arms.


End file.
